Transforming Restaurant Meals Into Kitchen Creations

chicken

The other day, someone who I had met at a food festival asked me for the recipe for this Moroccan Chicken. They had eaten it at an event I had catered in Philadelphia a couple of months ago though my catering company, J2Food, and loved it. I don’t always give out some of my more secret recipes, but since she was so nice, I decided to write it up and post it here for all of you 🙂 This Moroccan Chicken dish isn’t actually cooked inside of a “tagine” pot, but it echoes a lot of the flavors that I love when I ordering tagines at Moroccan restaurants — a little bit sweet, salty, sour, savory and the protein is always fall apart tender. It’s very comforting in this winter weather, and is also great to make in the slow cooker! Let me know how yours turns out.

I’ve been thinking about how to put a twist on some classic dishes lately. One of my favorites is Chicken Parmigiana. Who can resist the call of crispy chicken, hearty tomato sauce, and gooey cheese? Not this guy. But there are only so many ways to reinvent the wheel when it comes to a good chicken parm. So, I thought, “what about chicken parmigiana as a meatball?” and the idea for this dish was born. These meatballs have all the aspects of a plate of chicken parm that you love, without all of the work, and in a new, unique way.

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs of ground chicken—I like white meat, but if you’re afraid of your meatballs drying out, then dark meat is delicious. Same thing with ground turkey

1 tablespoon of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of minced onion, dried

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 egg

1/4 cup of wheat germ—breadcrumb lam work well too, but I think the wheat germ in the actual meatball gives it a little bit of sweetness that you often find in slow cooked chicken parmigiana dishes

In a bowl, mix ½ cup of Parmesan cheese with the Panko breadcrumbs, and set aside

Cut a few slices of the mozzarella, about ½ of the ball, and cube all but 2 of them

In another bowl, combine ground chicken, wheat germ, egg, salt, pepper, basil, garlic and onion together in a bowl

Mix the meat mixture, but not too much, just until it becomes homogenous

Grab about 1/8 of the meat mixture and form into a small patty

Use your thumb to make a small well in the center of the patty and place a couple of cubes of cheese there

Use your fingers to curl the meat around the cheese into a ball and your other hand to seal the edges. All do the cheese should be covered by meat so it doesn’t leak out

Roll the meatball in the Parmesan breadcrumb mixture until coated all over

Place the coated meatballs on a greased baking sheet, evenly spaced apart

Put the meatball sheet into the refrigerator for about 30-60 minutes, or 15-20 minutes in the freezer to firm up

Add a bit of olive oil to the top of each meatball before baking

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes

Once they’re starting to brown, flip the meatballs and bake for another 15 minutes

Remove the meatballs from the oven and turn the heat up to 425 degrees

In a small baking dish, or a large one, if you’d like to do them all at once, place your meatballs

Cover with 1-2 cups of the tomato sauce and the remaining cheese

Bake the meatballs again in the oven for 6-8 minutes. You just want to get the meatballs to absorb some of the sauce, and the cheese to melt nicely

Serve and enjoy! I like mine with a nice Caesar salad on the side, but these would be great with some pasta tossed in the same tomato sauce, on a sub, as a topping for pizza, or even as an appetizer. You’ll love this twist on your normal meatball recipe. Go balls to the wall! 😉

This recipe was inspired by the delicious Chicken Rendang dish I had at Malaysia Grill recently. One of the cooking methods that made that dish so unique was the use of ground onions in the gravy. The onions gave an amazingly aromatic and deep flavor to the dish. In my spin on a chicken curry, shallots are roasted and pureed into a paste in order to impart a similar flavor profile. This curry also incorporates flavors from Thai and Indian cuisines. I chose to make it with chicken, but it would be delicious with beef, shrimp or even vegetarian. Some crispy tofu or eggplant would be nice options. It might seem like a lot of steps, but once you’ve prepped, it really cooks quickly. You’ll love to eat this curry on a chilly day, or on any day of the year.

Place the chicken, cut into chunks, along with the rest of the marinade ingredients into a Ziploc bag with a strong zipper. Trust me, you’ll need the good kind, unless you want marinade all over your counter or the inside of your refrigerator.

Toss the cut lime into the bag as well since the zest will help flavor the chicken. You can also add some fresh ginger to this marinade if you want to turn this into a chicken stir-fry style dish. After marinating the chicken, sauté it with some broccoli or peppers or snow peas in a hot wok and serve over rice. Yum!

Marinade for 30 minutes minimum, and up to 1 day in the fridge.

This is what the chicken looked like after a day in the marinade

To Make the Roasted Potatoes:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Chop the potatoes in half lengthwise, then cut those pieces lengthwise again. Cut the long quarters into medium-large chunks. Don’t worry if all of the pieces aren’t the same size, your dish will look rustic and let people know that it’s homemade.

Place the potatoes onto a baking sheet.

Add a tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper, and dried cilantro. If you don’t have dried cilantro, then cumin would be tasty and would give the potatoes a smoky taste.

Toss to coat all of the potatoes with the oil and spices.

Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes. You want them be crisp and light brown on the outside, but be careful to not let them get too dark. These don’t require a lot of babysitting.

Potatoes out of the oven

To Make the Shallot Paste:

Peel the shallots (there will be 2 bulbs in each skin).

If the shallot is large then cut the bulbs in half, if not then place it whole onto a baking sheet.

Season the shallots with salt, pepper and remaining olive oil

Put the shallots into the oven about 10 minutes after the potatoes.

Once you’ve taken the shallots out of the oven, allow them to cool a bit.

Put the shallots into a blender with the curry powder, garam masala, ground ginger, and remaining teaspoon of oil.

Pulse while adding water until it comes together into a loose paste.

The potatoes and shallot paste could both be made ahead of time, just make sure to refrigerate.

To Make the Curry:

Add remaining peanut oil to a wok

Heat your wok on medium to medium high heat until the oil is shimmering, but not smoking

Add curry paste to the wok along with the zest of 1/2 a lime and minced Thai chilies, and heat through (1-2 minutes)

Add the shallot paste to the wok. You’ll be able to smell the aromas of Garam Masala and curry powder after cooking for a few minutes.

Add the coconut milk to the wok as well as the remaining sugar.

Let the sauce come up to a simmer and taste. You can add more fish sauce to taste.

Once the sauce is simmering steadily, it’s time to add the chicken. Remember to pick the lemongrass and limes out of the marinade bag. The lemongrass is inedible in this form and has done its job in flavoring the dish. Also, drain most all of the marinade out of the bag.

Cook the chicken for a couple of minutes, then add the roasted potatoes.

Now is the fun part. Stir the wok around and let it go on the stove for at least 10-15 minutes on medium low – medium in order to give the chicken time to cook in the sauce and the potatoes do lost their crispy exterior and absorb some sauce. Use this time to get a drink, or wash the chili off of your hands.

After it starts simmering again, squeeze half of a lime into the wok and keep simmering. Save the remaining lime half.

When the curry has reduced and has thickened up, so that sticks heavily to your spoon, then it’s done.

Doesn’t that look delicious?

Garnish with a wedge of lime and serve! A dollop of Greek yogurt or raita would be delicious to help cool down the palate as well.

A Taste for the Chef

There’s a deep Indian-spiced, curry flavor to the dish, with an escalating heat from the Thai chilies—no bite though, rather it’s a kind of heat that rests on the back of your tongue. You also taste the warming flavors of curry, garam masala and ginger, as well as an earthiness from the roasted shallots.

The chicken almost braises in the curry sauce, and doesn’t get chewy while cooking in the sauce. The potatoes also have a great mouth feel; they absorb some of the sauce, and the starchiness of the potatoes helps thicken up the gravy. The lemongrass complements the lime throughout the dish, and gives it a subtle citrus flavor, which helps cut across the heaviness of the dish itself. The dried shrimp rehydrates in the marinade as well as the curry, and much of it melts. The leftover pieces become chewy and add a nice fishiness to round out the flavor profile. Rice or naan is a great vehicle to scoop up the thick curry sauce, although the dish is filling enough to eat on its own. It’s so good you may lick your plate clean!